Legal Considerations in Inland Fisheries Management

1. Legal Considerations in Inland Fisheries Management Chapter 4

2. The Law and Fisheries • Fisheries managers must understand relevant laws and how they and the system work.

3. Legal Issues • There are six legal issues that fisheries managers must deal with regularly: • 1) Constitutional law • 2) Treaties • 3) Native people’s rights • 4) Harvest regulations • 5) Water allocation • 6) Private property rights

4. Constitutional law • Powers given to federal, state governments • Who has jurisdiction? • USFWS • DNR • Trend toward central control

5. Treaties • Federal government relations with neighbors, natives • International agreements may be paramount over other statutes • Native American water rights, fishing rights • Complexity! Who controls the resource?

6. Native people’s rights • Treaties, aboriginal rights, federal trusteeship • Right to fish for subsistence, religious & commercial purposes, maintain living standard • Balanced against state responsibility to provide self-sustaining fish populations • May be affected by endangered species

7. Harvest regulations • Responsibility of states in U.S. • Federal gov’t. can affect state regulation via interstate commerce • Responsibility of federal government in Canada, Mexico • Provinces can affect federal regulations via property rights

8. Water allocation • Affects fish habitat • Habitat preservation historically not considered beneficial use of water worthy of legal protection • Continuing problems with water rights legally granted for perpetuity

9. Private property rights • Legal doctrines, policies that tell landowners what they can, cannot do with their property • States can regulate land use • Federal government can control pollution • Obligation to protect public resources places limits on private property

10. The Fisheries’ Political Arena • 1) Electoral politics • Who are the leaders? • What is their “vision”? • 2) Legislative politics • Work with lawmakers on policy development

11. The Fisheries’ Political Arena-cont. • 3) Judicial politics • Expert witness • Regulation interpretations (court adviser) • 4) Implementation politics • Regulation enforcement • May require interagency cooperation, bargaining